Why no torque/power curves

This is a discussion on Why no torque/power curves within Technical Stuff, part of the Under the Hood category; I fail to understand as to why the torque and power curves are not published, even in the motoring press. ...

I fail to understand as to why the torque and power curves are not published, even in the motoring press. I did see them once in Overdrive (about 1" wide and 2" tall, though I would have preferred it the other way round - 2"wide). If these are published and /or made freely available many motorists will be better off in both driving as well in making decisions about their mounts.

I too have been searching the Torque and Power curves for various car models that I wanted to TD, but did not find any. If not in the magazines (to save on newsprint) they should atleast be available online with their respective Test Reports.

Sometimes mags carry them, but at random. At least for the international models, such plots are available over the net. But then again, many Indian variants have detuned engines, so the curves for Indian variants will not match with the international ones.

Possibly because 99% of the car buyers do not care about it. Even technical people look at the gear ratios, etc. along with it, since the engine characteristics alone don't convey a complete picture.

Since all commercially available cars are for street use, what is of more interest is 'driveability' - low-end grunt, RPM band for optimum gear shifting (provided the car has a tachometer), 'at what speed can I shift to overdrive' etc. etc., apart from - as @SirAlec rightly mentioned - "kitna deti hai?". Most people don't even associate their driving habits with consumption, let alone have the curiosity about Torque / Engine RPM and BHP / Engine RPM graphs.

Graphs are available in limited circulation, one has to look hard for it. SAE is a good place to look provided one is a member. For Japanese cars, the difficulty is that all accessible sites for such info are in Japanese. For American and European cars, one can ask the car company politely and they usually share that info, unless they are downright suspicious of the motives.

What matter more to me are:
1. Will the car - when the situation demands in city driving - pick up speed easily in 2nd gear or do I need to get to 1st anyhow?
2. On the highway, will it accelerate from 40 to 100 in overdrive, when - for example - I have slowed down for the slower vehicle in front to give way and me to accelerate after passing it? Or will it jerk shut?

Most of the manufacturer's graphs are smoothed so much that they do not represent the reality anymore and most do not give any low rpm figures. A lot of the factory supplied graphs do not resemble the reality when putting the cars on the dyno. This is my experience of thousands of graphs on various dynos.

Most manufacturers supply them somewhere with the brochures and definitively on demand.

However, the only way to get usable figures is when done on the dyno or with a g force metering device.